


Every Cop a Criminal

by Nyssa



Category: Starsky & Hutch
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-25
Updated: 2011-05-25
Packaged: 2017-10-19 18:53:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nyssa/pseuds/Nyssa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The guys (or a skewed/screwed version of them, anyway) team up for a big job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Every Cop a Criminal

**Author's Note:**

> This is an alternate universe story, written for the AU Bingo prompt "Criminals."

_Every cop is a criminal  
And all the sinners, saints._

“Sympathy for the Devil”  
The Rolling Stones

  
I walk into the bar at nine-thirty. I use the term “bar” loosely, and only out of respect for the ladies who work there. Whorehouse is more like it. Cheap booze, red lampshades, waitresses wearing micro-skirts and inviting smiles. In the far corner, a staircase winds upward, vanishing into darkness at the top. As I go in, there’s a guy coming down it, tugging at his zipper.

I look around and don’t see anybody matching my contact’s description, so I take a seat at the bar. The bartender’s a skinny black guy with a crooked nose and a purple satin shirt.

“Evenin’, my friend, and welcome to Huggy’s. In what way may we serve you tonight?”

I order beer. I used to drink vodka. When I was married, that seemed like the best way to deal with my ex-wife, or avoid dealing with her. I’m not married anymore, and I drink a lot less now.

I carry my glass to a corner table and sit with my back to the wall.

He walks in about ten minutes later. Dark curly hair, leather jacket, jeans, blue sneakers. He looks exactly like I’ve been told to expect, only more so.

I watch him exchange nods with the satin-shirted bartender, and then scan the room until his gaze settles on me. I raise both eyebrows.

His mouth twitches, and he heads my way. He pulls out the chair opposite me, spins it around, and straddles it. Then he folds his arms across the back and rests his chin on them, staring straight at me, and I can see close up just exactly how inadequate that description they gave me was. They said his eyes were blue, and they are. The same way the Pacific is wet.

“Sorry I’m late,” he says. He doesn’t look a bit sorry.

“No problem. Most of life is waiting.”

He smiles at me, and then a waitress appears and he turns the smile on her. She doesn’t seem to mind. She sidles up to him and he slides an arm around her waist, leaving it there while he orders a beer and some nachos “with extra dip.”

The girl walks away, displaying a blatantly gratuitous ass wiggle which my companion observes with a wistful sigh. “You seem to feel pretty much at home here,” I remark. “This your regular watering hole?”

He shrugs, and lifts his chin in the direction of the bar, where the bartender is wiping glasses. “I know the owner. Huggy and me go way back.”

I grunt and sip my beer.

He looks sardonically amused. “He don’t know everything about me, and he wouldn’t tell the cops if he did. Huggy’s no snitch.”

I don’t say anything. I don’t trust easily, not as easily, apparently, as he does. Which wouldn’t matter, except we’re going to be working together. I’d feel a lot better in another bar, some anonymous place where no one’s ever seen either of us.

The waitress comes back with his order, and asks if I want a refill. I don’t. My companion digs into the nachos with enthusiasm.

“My kid brother’s a cop,” he says, after a moment’s satisfied crunching. He grins and takes a drink, teeth flashing white above the glass. “Ain’t that a hell of a note?”

“That must be pretty inconvenient sometimes.”

He smiles again, casting his eyes down as he does so. He has long, sooty lashes that throw curved shadows on his cheekbones.

“Ah, Nicky’s okay. He’s a good kid, just a little uptight, y’know? Wants to right wrongs and give the bad guys hell. He gets on my case sometimes, but it’s nothin’ I can’t handle.” He dunks a nacho in cheese dip and looks up at me, eyes curious. “You got any family?”

“Not so’s you’d notice. Look, can we get on with this?” I’ve finished my beer, and I see no reason for us to stick around. And he’s distracting me, which puts me on edge. I’m not sure if he’s doing it intentionally or not, but with those eyes, he doesn’t have to try too hard.

“Gettin’ impatient, huh? Hey, we got all night. Nothin’s gonna happen till tomorrow morning. Might as well shoot the breeze.”

“I don’t know about you,” I say, “but I like to get a good night’s sleep before a big job.” _And this one’s the biggest. If you’re not a little jumpy, my friend, you’re a goddamn fool_.

He shrugs, and bites into another nacho. “Me, too. I sleep better on a full stomach.”

I watch him eat. It’s like watching a chess grandmaster study the board. Utter concentration. Perfect focus.

I wonder if he brings such single-minded dedication to everything he does. To his work? Undoubtedly. A man doesn’t acquire a reputation like his any other way.

And to his leisure activities?

He sees me watching him and our gazes lock. For a moment, I think I catch a speculative gleam in his eyes, but it might just be the light.

I avert my eyes, wishing I had just one swallow of beer left.

“You’re worried,” he says. “You need to cut that out.”

I give him an incredulous look. “Oh, pardon me. It’s just that I don’t do this kind of job every day.”

“You do it plenty. I know your record. You ain’t exactly a rank amateur, pal.”

I can’t believe he’s as blasé as he sounds. “Yeah, well, the circumstances are a little different this time, _pal_.”

“The stakes are higher, that’s all. The pot’s sweeter. But the game’s no different.”

I’m looking down, avoiding his eyes, and he leans forward and touches my hand.

“Hey,” he says. “He bleeds the same as anybody else.”

  
*****

  
“They come this way,” he says, unfolding the city map and smoothing it out on one of the beds. His finger traces a line across it. “He’ll be in the second car behind the motorcycles. They’ll be under our window at exactly 10:22 AM. Piece of cake.”

I look up from the map to see him smiling.

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” I say. “It’s what happens next that bothers me.”

He shrugs, and starts folding the map. “We take the stairs to the bottom. You run like hell up the street, I run like hell down the street. There’ll be a car waiting for each of us.”

I walk over to the window and look down at the headlights and taillights moving back and forth below us. The hotel is located in the middle of downtown; the room they rented for us is on the sixth floor. I walked the escape route this afternoon, twice, in disguise. I know how to get to the little back street where the traffic won’t be snarled, and I know where the cross street is where the car will be waiting to take me away. I still don’t like it.

“Whassamatter? You think we can’t do it?”

I don’t turn around. “Callendar couldn’t do it.”

“Callendar was alone.” I hear him rise, hear his sneakers whispering across the thick carpet, and then he’s standing next to me, gazing out at the night. “He was always alone, you know that. He wouldn’t work with anybody. He never knew when he needed help.”

“More money that way.”

He glances at me sharply. “And more chance of gettin’ your fucking head blown off. At least with a job this big. With two guys, you got backup. You got somebody lookin’ out for you.”

“If you trust each other.”

“We trust each other.”

I laugh. “Yeah, we’re bosom buddies. Two beers and a plate of nachos, and we’re soul mates.”

“We gotta trust each other. Ain’t gonna be nobody else on our side. You know damn well if we fuck this up, our employers’ll dump us in the ocean without thinkin’ twice.”

“So you can trust under duress. That’s great.” I turn to look at him. “But some of us can’t force it.”

There’s a smile lurking in his eyes. “Don’t gotta force it,” he says. “Just gotta let it happen, Blondie.” He raises a hand, slowly, and touches my hair, his fingers just brushing my scalp.

I take it, probably for a second or two longer than I should, before I can start thinking, and breathing, again. Then I catch his hand and lower it.

The smile spreads from his eyes to his mouth, and I realize I’m just standing there, holding his hand. I let go of it and back away.

“Hey,” he says, after a moment’s silence. “Nothin’ to be ashamed of. Not if you’re careful.”

I sit down on the bed, shoving the map aside. I don’t look at him. “I obviously haven’t been careful enough, have I?”

“Nobody told me. I just knew.”

“And now that you know?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Nothing you don’t want, I mean.”

I look up then, because with the last words his voice drops a little, sliding slowly downhill into a soft, throaty murmur. I search his eyes. Heat shimmers in them, just below the surface, and the deep blue has darkened almost to black. They just look at me, waiting.

 _Nothing you don’t want_. And I want everything.

I get up, take two steps, and he’s in my arms. I’m probably crazy; I’m sure he is. But in twelve hours I might be dead, and then it won’t make a damn bit of difference.

His mouth tastes cheesy and sharp, but it’s the feel of it that gets me, the slickness and the heat. I don’t know how he wants to play it, but he growls when my tongue slides in and meets it with his own, and his hips push hard against me, almost throwing me off balance. I have to grab him by the hip pockets to steady myself, but that doesn’t help. In fact, it makes me less steady. I already knew his ass was round and tight and incredible; I’d seen that much when I followed him out of the bar. Now I discover that it fits my hands to perfection. I squeeze.

He makes a gasping sound and shoves me backwards, tipping me down on the bed. He straddles me, on his knees, and I run my hands up and down his thighs while he fumbles with the buttons on my shirt.

You have to understand that I don’t do this. Not this way, not with people I’m working with, not with guys I have to look in the eye the next day. I like hookers; I like hustlers. You pay them, and they get you off. It’s clean, simple, and has a clearly defined ending point. They do exactly what you tell them, and you don’t have to wonder what the hell is going to happen next. Even if they’re fucking you, you’ve always got the upper hand. You paid for it.

So I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing there, flat on my back with him bracing me, covering me, holding me down while he spreads my shirt wide and kisses my chest and licks my nipples and rubs his rough cheek against my belly. I don’t think about it, because I know it wouldn’t make sense, and I like things to make sense.

He whispers, “You’re so smooth. Jesus.”

He isn’t. He’s soft fur over hard muscle, and I’m stroking his chest, tangling my fingers in the hair, following the trail down to his belt buckle, trying to force my fingers inside his jeans, until he shoves my hands aside and rasps, “Wait. Stop.”

I almost choke as he scrambles off the bed. “What the fuck?” I grab for him and he catches my arm and pulls me with him, propelling me across the room until we stand in front of the dresser. Our reflections look back at us from the mirror. I see the fierce jut of my erection, straining hard at my zipper.

He’s behind me, both arms around my waist, uptilted chin resting on my shoulder. “I like mirrors,” he says. “When this is over, I’m gonna buy me a place with a beautiful, soft, king size bed, satin sheets, and a great big mirror right over it.” His left hand slides down, cupping my cock through my jeans. “Look at us. Beautiful, huh?”

I thrust against his hand, letting my eyes drift shut, and he whispers, lips at my ear, “No, baby, look. Look what I do to you.”

I open my eyes and watch him work my fly open, watch his hand slip into my shorts, watch it close around my dick. He gives it one short, sharp jerk.

I hear myself groan, and he laughs, a hot gust of breath against my neck. “Oh, yeah. Feels good, huh? Want me to do ya this way?”

I spin in his arms and start tearing at his clothes. I don’t see why he should be the only one who gets to touch.

It’s not easy to get his painted-on jeans unzipped and pushed down, what with him whispering in my ear and biting my neck and groping my ass the whole time, but I manage it. His dick is dark and full and tilted just a fraction to the right. I know it’s a perfect fit even before I sink to my knees and swallow it.

He gasps, swears, staggers backward, almost goes down. I back off long enough to let him rid himself of his sneakers and the jeans that are hobbling him, and then I grab him and pull him back. I hold his ass in my hands and suck his cock. I use a lot of spit. I don’t have anything else on me, and I don’t know if he does, and I hate taking it dry. I’ve done it, but I hate it.

He’s moaning, and whispering, “Yeah, God, do it,” and digging his fingers into my hair, and I love it all, all of that and the hard, salty meat in my mouth and that beautiful ass, the muscles clenching and rippling in my hands. But I let him go, stand up, shuck my own pants and shoes, and turn, spreading my legs and gripping the edge of the dresser. I look into the mirror. My face is red, lips swollen, eyes glazed. I don’t know if I always look like that when I’m about to get my ass fucked, or if it’s just him.

He grabs me by the hips and humps me, just a little, his dick riding my crack just enough to make us both groan. Then I feel his fingers on my lips and I snap at them like a dog. I wet them and he pushes them into me, two of them, once, twice. I see his face at my shoulder, tense, strained, holding back.

“You ready?”

I almost laugh. “What do you think?” His fingers are sliding easily back and forth.

He draws them out and whispers, “I think you’re about to get one hell of a special delivery, sweetheart.”

I feel him lining himself up, and with one hard shove, he’s in.

He says, “ _Fuck_ ,” in a voice that sounds like all the air just left his lungs. I know how he feels. He’s almost pushed me into the mirror. I brace myself against the dresser, gripping it so hard my forearms ache. His next thrust nearly makes my knees buckle, though I hardly notice that. He’s hit me just right, just perfect, and lights explode behind my eyes.

“More.” I squirm back against him. “Come on!”

He laughs a dark, breathless laugh in my ear. “Pushy, ain’t ya?”

He winds his arms around my waist, one of them just barely touching the head of my dick. I see it in the mirror, the wet tip brushing lightly against the black hair on his arm, seeming to plead for more contact. I can’t do anything about it, even though I want those strong hands right there, pulling and squeezing. I try to catch his eye, but he’s not looking at me. His eyes are screwed shut in concentration as he gets his rhythm going, a steady, thumping cadence that I can feel in every nerve of my body. It’s a dancer’s rhythm, and I take it like I was made for it, following his lead, swaying to his backbeat. The dresser shakes dangerously.

He grinds against me, panting. “Jesus,” he gasps. “You got the sweetest, tightest ass. Shoulda told me about it at Huggy’s, we coulda gone upstairs right then, I coulda been reaming you out all this time….”

The strained words dissolve into grunts, and he just fucks, hard and fast and true, and it’s so good I want to scream. I can’t come with nothing touching my cock, but I don’t care. That doesn’t matter when you’re getting it that good from the rear; at least to me it doesn’t. I can beat off after if I need to. Getting fucked narrows my focus down to a pinpoint. It drives everything else out. It’s the best way I know to clear my mind.

He starts getting frantic, swearing and moaning and biting my shoulder. I know he’s close, and I grit my teeth and grind backwards against him. I had closed my eyes because I couldn’t take the overload with them open, the sensation of the long, thick rod filling me up, the flashes of lightning every time my sweet spot got rubbed, the sight of my own cock straining helplessly upward, his face watching us avidly over my shoulder. Now I open them and meet his in the mirror just for a second, just long enough for me to register the ecstasy there before he closes them and his mouth opens in a soundless gasp and he grabs my hips again, hard, and pumps into me with one last flurry of furious jabs. He yells, and I can feel him pulsing inside, throbbing as he shoots.

Everything goes still, and stays that way for a long moment. He breathes hard against the back of my neck, and I hear him making small, whimpering sounds of relief. We sway together, slowly, as he comes down. My legs are rubbery, and I know his have to be worse. I peel my white-knuckled fingers off the dresser. His hands still rest, trembling, on my hips. I reach back and cover them, steady them, with mine.

That seems to rouse him. He opens his eyes and gives me a shaky smile. Then he looks down, across my front, and shakes his head slowly. He pulls gently away from me, and I gasp as his cock slips free.

“C’mere,” he says, voice hoarse. At my questioning expression, he tugs me toward the bed. “C’mon, lay down.” He nods in the direction of my neglected cock. “I gotta get me a taste of that, and I wanna do it in comfort.”

At that moment, he looks so wrecked I half expect him to fall asleep the second we hit the sheets. I’m not even sure _I_ won’t, and the hell with my hard-on. I lie down, face up, and he stretches out beside me. I groan a little as my muscles relax.

He cocks his head. “You okay?”

“Bad back,” I say. I take his hand and guide it to my cock. He lets me fit his fingers around it snugly.

He smiles, and runs his thumb slowly around the head. I twitch, moaning.

“I think your back’s terrific,” he says. “But not as terrific as your front. This – ” he does it again, the son of a bitch “ – this is a work of art.”

I grunt, pushing my hips up. I’m losing patience. I gave him what he wanted when he wanted it, and now the fucker’s playing with me.

“Suck it,” I tell him. _Goddammit, you said you wanted to_.

He smiles again, and twists around, moving between my legs, bringing his head so close I can feel his breath stirring the hair at my crotch. “I took art appreciation my sophomore year,” he says.

And then finally, his mouth is on me.

I struggle up to my elbows, even though that puts more strain on my back. I want to see him take it, see that hot mouth as it pulls me in, see his throat muscles work. I see all that, but what I like best is the way his hair looks. Every time his head bobs, the light from the bedside lamp glints off the dark curls, turning them almost chestnut. They look incredibly soft and springy. I put my hand on them, rub them gently between my fingers.

He looks up at me then, mouth still working away, eyes storm blue and hungry, and there’s something in those eyes I can’t look at. I stop petting his hair and start pushing his head down, guiding it, demanding. He goes willingly – sucking harder, tongue pressing underneath, just the merest hint of teeth – and I throw my head back and pump into him, coming down his throat. He stays with me all the way, not gagging until the last spurts. Then I feel his hands pulling at mine, and I realize dimly that my fingers are still tangled in his hair. I make an effort to loosen them, and he pulls free, gasping.

I collapse onto my back, my whole body shaking. It takes me a couple of tries before I can speak, and then it’s in a raspy whisper. “Sorry.”

He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “ ‘S’okay,” he says. “I kinda like it. You ever tried havin’ somebody choke ya? Cut off your air when you’re just about to come?”

I just stare at him. My brain is rapidly shutting down, and it seems entirely possible he didn’t really say that.

He grins. “It’s scary as hell, but it’s fun sometimes.” He puts out a hand and touches my face, running a finger lightly across a cheekbone and down to my jaw. “Takes a lotta trust, though,” he says softly.

He gets up and walks into the bathroom. He’s still wearing his shirt, and I watch it flap loosely against his bare ass as he goes.

We sleep together, even though there are two beds. We don’t talk about it; I’m nearly asleep when he comes out of the bathroom, and it seems somehow natural when he turns the light off and slips under the covers with me. But that’s another thing I don’t do.

I wake up in the middle of the night and watch him. He’s on his side, facing me, hugging his pillow, lips slightly parted, breath coming slow and deep. He looks like an animal does who has no knowledge of the future, and therefore no anxiety about it.

I touch his hair again, too lightly to wake him. Then I turn onto my back and stare at the ceiling for a long time.

  
*****

  
By the time I wake up, he’s already ordered room service. I shower and shave by rote, barely aware I’m doing it. I’m thinking about the job, sure. My stomach is tight and fluttery with thinking about it. But I’m thinking about him, too, and that pisses me off. I can’t afford to think about him. I have to forget about last night and focus, dammit. But my ass is sore, and when I look in the mirror I see red marks on my neck, like tiny brands.

 _Stupid_ , I tell myself, glaring at my reflection. _You stupid, stupid fuck_.

When I emerge from the bathroom, hair damp, towel cinched around my waist, he’s sitting at the room’s little table, eating. Bacon, eggs, and coffee steam in front of him. The smells hit me right in my nervous gut. I feel sweat break out on my forehead, and I grab the door frame and swallow convulsively.

He stares at me, wide-eyed, over his coffee. “What the hell – you sick?”

I lurch across the room to the window, which I shove open, and pull in a lungful of genuine LA smog. It makes me cough, but the churning in my belly subsides a little.

He’s beside me, bringing the food smells with him, and my stomach shudders again. He touches my back gently.

“Hey, you gonna be okay?”

The concern in his voice grates on me, and I jerk away from him. “Yes, I’m gonna be okay! Just back off, will you?”

He raises his eyebrows, but he backs off. He goes back to the table and sits down. I see him eyeing me warily over a piece of toast.

I turn away and look out at the city. The clock on the bank down the street blinks 7:48.

I push away from the window, drop the towel, and start to dress. I know he’s watching, but he says nothing. I begin to feel faintly guilty.

“You like bacon, huh?” I ask, inanely, as I sit down to put my shoes on.

He shrugs, and takes a sip of coffee. “Sure. Great invention.”

“I thought you were….”

He grins. “Jewish? Yeah. I break a lotta commandments, though.”

I snort. “No kidding.”

“I ordered breakfast for two. Don’t you wanna – ”

I cut him off with a raised hand. “No, thanks.”

“You didn’t eat last night, either. You on a diet or something?”

“I’m fasting.”

He blinks. “Fasting?”

“I always fast for at least twenty-four hours before a job. Forty-eight hours is even better, but sometimes it’s tough to hold out that long.” Although right now I feel like I could hold out till next Christmas, I’ve got so many knots in my gut.

He’s staring at me like I just told him I enjoyed skydiving without a parachute.

“It purges the system, rids the body and mind of toxins. It’s great for your concentration. Unless you go for too long; if you get too hungry your concentration starts to suffer. There’s a fine line between too much and too little.”

“That’s just weird,” he says.

“Weird, right. Unlike having someone choke you while you’re fucking.”

“But that’s fun! Well, sometimes. You’re talkin’ about starving!”

“Well, what do you do to prepare yourself?”

“I dunno. I don’t really think about it, I guess. If I thought about it too much I’d freeze, y’know? I’d get scared.” He swallows a mouthful of scrambled eggs and points his fork at me. “And you were drinkin’ beer last night, buddy. What about _those_ toxins?”

I shrug. “I’m not a fanatic.”

He shakes his head and says, “Huh.”

We don’t say anymore for a while. He finishes his breakfast and puts the dishes outside the door. Then he lies down and reads the newspaper. I try to meditate. The tension I feel makes that hard to do, and the sight of him sprawled on the bed we shared last night – jeans pulled tight across his ass, shirt open halfway down his silky-haired chest – makes it impossible. I go into the bathroom and give it another shot, but it’s no good. My center dances teasingly just out of reach.

When I come out, he’s running a chamois cloth over his rifle. I haven’t seen it before; like me, he’s been carrying his weapon disassembled in a nondescript black briefcase. Now it’s in one piece, and the cloth slides slickly over the gleaming black metal in a sensuous caress. I like watching it. He’s wearing leather gloves, and I like that, too.

He glances up at my approach, and then turns his attention back to the rifle with a regretful sigh. “I’m gonna hate to give this baby up,” he says. “My Uncle Joey gave it to me.”

Of course, we’re going to have to leave our rifles behind. There’ll be no time to break them down, and we sure as hell can’t expect to go running through the hotel and down the street carrying high-powered rifles in our hands. We’ll have our side arms, in shoulder holsters under our shirts, and that’ll have to do.

“Joe Durniak?”

At his surprised glance, I add, “I’ve heard rumors.”

“Well, he wasn’t really my uncle, he was more like a very close friend of the family. But I always called him Uncle Joey. He and my pop were really tight, and after my pop died, Joey pretty much raised me. Taught me to shoot, taught me everything. Got me my very first contract.” He sighs, laying the rifle carefully down on the bed and stuffing the cloth into his pocket. “He woulda done the same for my brother, but Nicky never would listen to reason. Ran off to join the army right outta high school, and signed up for the police academy the day he got home from ‘Nam. Ma cried for weeks.”

I don’t say anything. Joe Durniak is dead now, shot down a year ago in what the papers called a “gangland territorial dispute.” I wonder how many people might be interested in eliminating his friends and associates – and “nephews,” too. That thought makes my stomach go cold. Which is insane; after all, I barely know this guy.

Time crawls by, and I feel like a tiger in a cage. We can’t go out; we can’t risk being recognized. So I clean my rifle. I read the paper. I pace.

He sits on the bed and watches me. Not _just_ me; he also watches television. The news reports drive me nuts – what time the plane’s going to land, which streets are going to be blocked off – and finally I snap the thing off myself. He doesn’t say anything. He just turns the set back on, this time to a channel showing Bugs Bunny cartoons.

But through all of it, I can feel his eyes on me. At one point, I sit down on the other bed and stare blindly at the TV screen. I hear him get up, feel the mattress dip as he settles behind me. His mouth brushes the back of my neck as lightly as a breath of wind.

I say nothing, and he kisses me again, in the same spot. I have bite marks there, from the night before. His lips are so soft now, I wonder if he means the kisses as an apology. If he does, he’s fucking crazy. I’d wanted every one of those bites. I’d reveled in them.

Once is one thing, though. At night, with the lights of the city spilling in, and the heat and smell of a man, and you can tell yourself it doesn’t matter, because it doesn’t, not really. But twice? With the morning sun coming through the curtains and the clock ticking and his mouth so gentle? That’s real. That’s serious.

That’s crazy.

I turn and look at him, at the question in his eyes. I don’t have to say anything. His eyes search mine, and then he looks away, gets up, and goes back to the other bed.

At ten o’clock sharp, he switches the channel back to the news. We watch the plane land, watch the saluting and the handshakes and the limos leaving the airport. Then he turns the TV off. We take our weapons and move to the open window.

At 10:16 we hear the sirens, still distant. I look down. People are six deep on both sides of the street. It’s hard to make out individual faces from so far up; I can just see a mass of humanity, all heads turned in one direction, to the right, toward the sound of the sirens. Little rectangles of color stand out everywhere among the crowd. It takes me a few seconds to identify them as tiny American flags being waved excitedly.

Beside me, I hear a wondering little laugh.

“I don’t know why he did it,” he says, staring downward and shaking his head. “He coulda stayed in San Fran, run his business, made a thousand times more bread than you or I’ll ever see no matter how good we are – but he didn’t. He ran for president. Now he’s got less clout, less dough, and a fuckin’ bull’s-eye on his chest.” He looks at me, an expression of honest bewilderment on his face. “Why?”

I shrug. “Public-spirited, I guess.”

The sirens get closer, and the cheering gets louder. A phalanx of motorcycles appear, cruising slowly up the street. Behind them is a big black Lincoln with its top down. Five men sit in it, all of them wearing suits and ties and sunglasses, all of them with one hand hovering at the alert, ready to reach under their jackets. Their heads swivel as they look restlessly from side to side, and up. In a moment, they’ll be looking directly at our window. We both draw back a little, automatically, being careful not to move the curtains.

Behind the Secret Service men is our target.

He’s in the back seat of a stretch limousine. The top is down, and his silver-gray hair stands out like a beacon in the morning sun. He’s waving, turning from right to left and back again, acknowledging and returning the greetings from the crowd. Two girls at the curb throw kisses at him.

I take all this in on autopilot, barely breathing. Weapon at the ready, I wait. Next to me, I can smell my partner’s sweat. I can almost hear his heart beating. I don’t look at him. I look through my sights, staring at the crosshairs. The limo’s long, long body slides past.

Neither of us needs to say _Now_. I hear a sharp, indrawn breath, and I fire. So does he, and there’s a frozen moment of nothing but the ring of shots, one after the other, over and over, mine and his, intertwining. And then, one fleeting instant of perfect silence before the screaming starts.

I watch our target slump in his seat, watch the limo swerve crazily. I step back from the window and meet my partner’s eyes. They’re wild and hot and black with adrenaline. He grins, a crazy, lunatic grin that says more clearly than words _We did it!_ I grin back, soaring on the high, dizzy with triumph, and then I grab his head and kiss him on the lips.

He goes with it for a bare second before he pulls away – laughing, gasping – and says, “Let’s go!”

We drop our rifles and run.

The stairs are at the end of the corridor, under a sign that says “Emergency Exit,” and I almost laugh. Damn right it is. There’s no one in sight, not a maid, not anyone. He yanks the door open, and we go charging down the echoing stairwell side by side, so close I can feel the leather of his jacket brushing mine. We pass numbered doors – five, four, three, two, one, Lobby.

The stairway door opens at the back of the lobby. I get a fleeting glimpse of the front end – people running, shouting, crying, pointing out to the street – and then we’re out the back door. The sunlight stabs my eyes, and I see him put up an arm to shield his.

A parking lot stretches before us, choked with cars, endless. Once we cross that open space, we’ll emerge onto Woodson Avenue, a nondescript, tree-shaded back street where he’ll turn left and I’ll turn right, and we won’t see each other again.

We separate and start off, running hunched over, ducking between cars. Behind us is bedlam, people screaming, sirens wailing. Overhead, I hear the chop-chop-chop of a hovering helicopter. I keep my head down. If we’re lucky, if we’re _real_ lucky, we’ll look like just two more panic-stricken eyewitnesses to the crime of the century.

I make it out of the parking lot first and glance quickly to left and right. Woodson is lined with cars, parked legally and illegally, left there by owners determined to see the motorcade. Otherwise, the street looks deserted. The car that’s waiting to take me away – a green Plymouth Valiant, they told me, license plate 770 BNR – is around the corner, two blocks down. It feels like miles.

His footsteps come pounding up behind me and I turn. He gives me a quick glance before his eyes sweep the street as mine did. The euphoria I saw in him immediately after the shooting is gone; he looks alert, edgy, watchful. Sweat trickles from his hairline.

He turns back to me, and I get a good last look at his eyes. Once again I find myself marveling that they make eyes that blue. And there’s a look in them, for just a moment, an unguarded expression that shakes me all over again.

Then he blinks, and it’s gone. “So long, partner,” he says, with a crooked grin. “Been a pleasure.”

“Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Take care.”

He looks as if he’s going to speak again, but he doesn’t. He nods, smiles a little, and gives me a swat on the ass. Then he’s gone, jogging down the street, looking carefully to left and right.

I turn away, quickly, and head in the opposite direction.

I haven’t gone ten steps when I hear the shots. I whirl, dropping to the ground, fumbling to get my Magnum out of its holster, my heart thundering so wildly in my ears that for a second, I can’t hear a thing. I scramble awkwardly behind the nearest car, and peer over its hood.

He’s down. He’s lying in the middle of the street, curled on his side in a patch of sunlight. Behind him, maybe twenty yards up the street, a blue sedan parallel parked at the curb roars to life. I get a glimpse of sunlight glinting off something metallic at the rear window of the car. It’s a rifle barrel. As I watch, it disappears back inside the car.

I see all of this in a flash, an instant. My mind screams at me. _Run! Run!_ I look back down the street, the way I was headed. It’s clear, or seems to be.

I turn back. The blue car is pulling away from the curb. He’s still lying there, unmoving, the breeze ruffling his curls. I watch blood bubble from his chest to pool on the pavement, and my guts twist.

 _He’s dead. He must be. Even if he isn’t…. Run! Run!_

He moves. There’s a tiny twitch as he struggles to lift his head. While I watch, frozen, his lips part, as if he’s trying to cry for help. His eyes open. They move back and forth, up and down, and I know what he’s looking for. I know _who_ he’s looking for.

His partner.

I jump out from behind the car that’s shielding me. Holding the Magnum in both hands, I lay down a volley of shots in the direction of the blue sedan. Tires screech, and the car reverses. Then I’m running, running, yelling his name, yelling “Starsky!” The blue car is coming toward us, and there’s the rifle barrel again, poking out the window. I don’t register it. All I can see are his eyes locked on mine, his hand reaching toward me, and I fall on my knees beside him, and I’m falling, falling, falling…into his eyes.

  
*****

 _LOS ANGELES (Associated Press) – James Marshall Gunther, thirty-ninth president of the United States, was assassinated today at 10:22 AM, Pacific Standard Time. Death appears to have been instantaneous._

 _The president was shot from a sixth-floor window of the Continental Hotel on Orange Grove Boulevard while his motorcade wound through the city en route to Wexler Plaza, where Mr. Gunther was scheduled to give a speech on his administration’s plans for dealing with organized crime._

 _The alleged assassins were also shot to death only minutes after the murder. The bodies of David Michael Starsky, of Bay City, and Kenneth Richard Hutchinson, no known address, were found on Woodson Avenue, which runs parallel to Orange Grove Boulevard behind the Continental Hotel. Police are investigating the shootings, but say it appears likely that the suspects, who are believed to have had mob ties, were murdered while attempting to make their escape._

 _President Gunther had been highly outspoken in recent months regarding gangland violence. Several high-profile mob killings spurred him to take action, leading to the formation of the President’s Committee to Combat Organized Crime, which was to have been announced this morning. The committee’s future is now in doubt._

 _A White House spokesman said Vice-President Alexander Bates would be sworn in as the nation’s fortieth president immediately._

  



End file.
